


This is How it Works

by Sena



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-17
Updated: 2010-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-13 06:08:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sena/pseuds/Sena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, another way Dean could have shown up at Sam and Jess' apartment</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is How it Works

**Author's Note:**

> _This is how it works  
>  You're young until you're not  
> You love until you don't  
> You try until you can't  
> You laugh until you cry  
> You cry until you laugh  
> And everyone must breathe  
> Until their dying breath  
> \--On the Radio, Regina Spektor_

That bitch better not be in my parking spot," Jess says as she takes the corner slow.

Sam laughs softly. "How'd your test go?"

"I aced it."

"Told you."

"I'm stopping at the store and when I get home, I'd better have a parking spot. Look out the window. Is she in my spot?"

Sam laughs again. "What are you going to get for dinner?"

"Are you looking out the window?" Jess asks, pulling into the supermarket parking lot.

"I'm looking, and Mrs. Gibson is _not_ in your parking spot."

"Better not be," says Jess. "Because I told her the next time she parks diagonally into my spot I'm getting her ass towed, which I will. What do you want for dinner?" Sam doesn't says anything so Jess checks her reception, then says, "Sam?"

"I have to go," Sam says, and the line goes dead. Jess frowns as she flips her phone closed. She thinks Mrs. Gibson probably just pulled into her spot and she hopes Sam yells at her. Sam doesn't like to yell at anybody, but Jess _will_ get the crazy bitch towed. She pays for that parking spot and she's sick and tired of getting home to see Mrs. Gibson's stupid minivan parked across two spots like she's got to protect the stupid thing from dings, like it's a Porshe or a BMW instead of a 1989 Ford Aerostar.

When Jess gets home from the store, Mrs. Gibson's stupid minivian is not in her spot, thank God. She carries the groceries up and dumps them in the kitchen. She's about to start cooking when she feels strange--she can't put her finger on it, but something's not right. There's a dark handkerchief on the coffee table that Jess doesn't recognize. She leans to pick it up, then stops when she sees that the handkerchief itself is white, it's just blood that makes it look dark. She rushes through the apartment, her heart in her throat.

Sam's in the bathroom. He's not hurt and he's not alone. There's another man with him, sitting on the counter with his t-shirt sleeve rolled up, hissing as Sam cleans away dark crusted blood from a gash on his right bicep.

"Jesus Christ," Sam says as he wets another washcloth and wipes away more dried blood. "How long ago did you get this?"

"Few days," the man says. He's handsome, despite the fact that his face is pale and the bags under his eyes are dark. "This your girlfriend?"

Sam turns his head and sees Jess standing in the doorway. There's a flash of something in his eyes, so fast she can't read it. "You get two guesses who this idiot is," he says to Jess, "and the first one doesn't count."

"Hey!" says the man. He hisses again as Sam pokes and pulls at the gash.

"Pussy," says Sam.

Jess says, "You must be Dean."

"You are _way_ too hot to be dating my little brother," Dean says. He gives her a flirtatious grin that turns almost immediately into a wince as Sam rubs a cotton pad soaked with peroxide over the gash. "Christ, Sammy, give a guy some warning!" he snaps.

"Pussy," Sam says again. He looks over his shoulder at Jess. "Could you get the vodka out of the freezer?" he asks.

"Now that's what I'm talking about," says Dean.

Jess doesn't know what to do, so she gets the vodka. When she comes back, Sam is threading a very thin, curved needle with what looks like black fishing line. She knows he likes to mend his clothes if they get a tear, but she doesn't understand why he'd be mending anything when his brother has a gash on his arm that obviously needs medical attention. When Sam pours the vodka over the needle and down the thread, Jess thinks she might be sick.

"Son of a--" is all Dean says as Sam starts to stitch the wound. He says it deep in his throat, his teeth gritted.

Sam says, "Stop moving."

"I'm not--ow--fuck," says Dean.

Sam works quickly, his long fingers graceful as they make neat sutures in Dean's skin. Jess can't look away. "When's the last time you got a tetanus shot?" Sam asks.

"I don't know. Four months ago, maybe." Dean takes a deep, shaky breath and lets it out slow. "You wanna hand that vodka over?"

"The last thing you need is alcohol."

"I think I deserve a couple shots, Sammy."

"My name is Sam. And you've lost a lot of blood. You need water and rest." Sam ties a precise knot, then cuts the thread. He douses another cotton pad with peroxide, pats it over the sutured gash.

Dean looks down at his arm and nods. "You still got the touch," he says.

"You need to get that looked at by a real doctor," says Sam.

Dean shrugs and reaches for the vodka, which Sam snatches out of his reach and hands back to Jess. Dean frowns, then turns his stunning smile on Jess again. "Did I mention that you are way out of Sammy's league?" he asks.

Jess says, "I'll make up the couch." She returns the vodka to the freezer then goes to the linen closet. She takes out blankets and pillows, carries them to the couch. The bloody handkerchief is still on the coffee table. After a few minutes, she hears the water in the shower start to run. Sam takes the pillow from her hands.

"I didn't know he was coming," Sam says as he lays the pillow against the couch's armrest.

Jess nods. "He needs a doctor."

"I know. He won't go."

"I didn't...how did you know how to do that?"

"My dad. And, you know, Dean's always gotten in a lot of scrapes, so I had plenty of practice." He runs one hand over his hair, messing it up. "Look, it's just one night, and if you want I can--"

"I'm glad he's here," Jess says.

Sam looks surprised. "You are?"

"Yes." She bumps his hip with her own. "Maybe now I'll finally get to hear stories about your childhood that don't end in, '...never mind, it's complicated.'"

Sam sighs. "My childhood _was_ complicated."

"So I've been told." She strokes his cheek, reaches up to smooth his hair. "It's just nice to finally meet your family. After all, you've met mine."

Sam nods. "I still think your dad wants to kill me."

"My dad loves you. It's Justin and Jason you should be worried about."

Sam laughs softly as he pulls her into his arms. "Your brothers don't scare me."

"They've scared every other guy I've dated."

"I'm not any other guy," Sam says. He kisses her gently, then with more heat. He runs his hands down her back, cups her ass and pulls her even closer to him.

"Sam," Jess says, feeling a blush warm her cheeks. "Your brother's here."

"You don't know Dean," Sam whispers, kissing her cheek, down to that spot behind her jaw that makes her weak. "He'll be in the shower for half an hour at least. We can be quick."

Jess laughs and pushes him away, swats his arm. "You're like a big, horny puppy," she says.

He loops one long arm around her waist and reels her back in. "You've never complained before."

She lays her head on his shoulder, lets herself luxuriate in the feel of his arms around her for a moment. Then she pulls away. "I'm going to start dinner," she says.

Sam sighs, but after a moment he follows her into the kitchen to help. He cuts the leeks and chops the tarragon while Jess gets the pan ready. They had fallen into an easy pattern once they started living together--Jess did the actual cooking while Sam did the prep work and cleanup.

He hadn't been kidding about the time Dean would spend in the shower. The table's been set and dinner's nearly finished by the time Dean peeks his head out of the bathroom door and, in a cloud of steam, says, "Hey, Sammy, do you have any--"

"Yeah," Sam says. "Just a second." He heads into the bedroom for a moment, then comes out with a pile of clean clothes that he passes to Dean through the barely cracked bathroom door. Jess loves that Dean didn't even have to finish his sentence, that Sam already knew exactly what he wanted. She wishes sometimes that she had sisters she could be like that with instead of two older, rough and tumble brothers who think of her as more of a doll than a person.

"The man loves his hot showers," Sam says with a grin as he comes back into the kitchen. He rinses the pan as Jess carries the plates to the table, and soon after, Dean comes out of the bathroom in a pair of Sam's sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt.

"Gangly bastard," Dean mutters as he stops to roll up the cuffs on the sweatpants.

Sam just laughs and says, "Sit down and eat. When's the last time you ate something that didn't come from a Quick Mart?"

Dean hums and shrugs. "Three, four years ago? Where do you want me to sit?"

"Right there's fine," says Jess, indicating the closest spot.

They all sit down and Dean rubs his hands together, then looks at his plate. "This looks, um...interesting."

"It's braised salmon with leeks," Sam says.

Dean nods, looking unconvinced that it's edible.

"Does he not like salmon?" Jess asks in a whisper.

"He likes salmon," Sam tells her.

"He's sitting right here," says Dean.

"Eat," says Sam. "There's peach crisp for dessert."

"Homemade?" asks Dean hopefully.

Sam nods and Dean takes up a forkful of salmon. He puts it in his mouth and waits a moment and Jess realizes it's the exact same thing Sam did the first time she made salmon for him. She realizes that before her, neither one of them had ever had it.

"It's good," says Dean, like he's surprised. Sam doesn't say anything, but Jess can see a tiny smirk playing around the corners of his mouth and crinkling his eyes.

Dean eats two helpings of salmon and half the peach crisp. Jess can see Sam watching his brother out of the corner of his eye, can tell that he's pleased by how much Dean is eating.

After dinner, Dean stretches out on the couch and flips through their digital cable for a good ten minutes before he settles on the Guns & Ammo channel. Jess isn't really surprised, since sometimes she catches Sam watching it when he thinks she's asleep. She's amused by boys and their obsession with guns, by the way they don't even see that they're such an obvious phallic symbol.

She sits in one of the armchairs and props her bare feet up on the coffee table, resting her Molecular Biomechanics textbook open across her thighs. She's read maybe two pages by the time Sam's finished with the dishes and she catches his movement out of the corner of her eye. She glances up with a grin, expecting to see him trying to sneak towards her. Instead he squats down next to the couch and eases the remote from Dean's hand, presses gently on Dean's shoulder until he's lying down with his head on the pillow.

"'m not sleeping," Dean grumbles, but his eyes don't open. Sam pulls the covers up and around him, tucks them in, brushes a piece of fuzz off Dean's temple. It's so sweet it makes Jess ache a little inside and she thinks of the future, when Sam will tuck their children into bed and stroke their hair to help them sleep.

She and Sam head to bed soon after, since they've both got early classes. Jess wakes up around two and Sam is spooned up behind her. She can feel his erection rubbing against her ass. She turns so that she's facing him and kisses him gently. She hooks one leg over his and Sam makes a soft noise in his throat as he wraps his arms around her, rocks against her slowly.

Jess slides her hand down beneath his sweatpants to caress his ass. She slips her fingers into his crack, rubs against his hole. She loves the soft, needy sounds he makes whenever she does that. "Good?" she whispers.

Sam nods and presses his face into her hair. Sam has trouble sleeping and they have a lot of slow, lazy sex in the middle of the night. Jess had always preferred morning sex before Sam.

She's just wearing a t-shirt, which Sam pushes up as she helps him slip his sweatpants down. He enters her slowly and it's always an ache at first that's so delicious she can't help but moan.

Sam rocks into her over and over again and Jess kisses him sweetly, rubs his hole, uses her other hand to stroke his hair. He waits until she shudders with climax before finally letting himself go, muffling his groans against her hair.

She smiles and stretches and closes her eyes, listens to the sound of Sam's labored breaths. His breaths slow down eventually, but not to the slowness of sleep. Jess opens her eyes and peers over at him. He's staring up at the ceiling, his lips pursed in a tight line.

"Still can't sleep?" she asks, rubbing his chest.

"Yeah. I don't...did Dean seem off to you?"

"It's not like I have anything to compare it to," she says. "This is the first time we've met."

"Yeah, I know, just...I don't know. I think something's wrong."

"Something besides the eight inch gash in his arm?"

"Yeah."

"He's sick," she tells him. "He's so pale."

Sam nods. "He lost a lot of blood. That cut looked at least three days old."

"You sure he won't see a doctor?"

"Pretty sure, yeah. I'll try to talk him into it tomorrow, but..."

"But he won't go."

Sam nods and Jess sighs and closes her eyes.

The next day is Thursday. Jess has class all morning and work all afternoon. She gets home at six and collapses on the couch. Sam sits on the coffee table, pulls her feet into his lap, takes off her shoes and socks, rubs his thumbs hard into the arch of her foot. Jess closes her eyes and sighs, hums happily when Sam pulls on each of her toes, making the knuckles crack.

"Is this some kinky foot sex thing?" Dean asks from his spot on the couch next to Jess. "Should I leave you two alone?"

Jess laughs and Sam says, "You're a pervert." Dean doesn't argue.

Instead, Dean leans in towards Jess and sniffs, tentatively at first, then he breathes deep.

Jess looks over at him, quirks an eyebrow.

"You smell like coffee," he says.

"I work at Starbucks."

"You smell like overpriced coffee," Dean tells her. "Did you bring me any?"

"I didn't know you wanted any."

"I always want coffee."

Jess waves her hand towards the kitchen. "Help yourself. We get a pound a week. There's more coffee in the cabinet than Sam and I will ever be able to drink."

"I'll make a French press," Sam says, setting Jess's feet back on the floor.

"A what now?" Dean asks.

Sam grins at him and shakes his head. "Just coffee," he says.

"So," Dean says, stretching his arm across the back of the couch. "How did you and Sammy meet?"

"I was dating his roommate, Mark," she says. She sees Sam turn in the kitchen, suddenly, look at her with wide eyes, shake his head. She smiles at him. She wasn't going to tell Dean about that, anyway.

"And Sammy stole you from him?" Dean sounds impressed.

"Not really," Jess tells him. "Mark and I broke up but Sam and I stayed friends."

"Friends," says Dean, like it's a foreign concept.

"Don't you have any girls as friends?" she asks him.

Dean shakes his head, then shrugs. "Hell, I don't really have friends."

"Why not?" She can't imagine him not having friends, not with the way he can turn on the charm and disarm people with that smile.

He shrugs again. "Don't have time, and work takes me all over. I've got my dad, I've got Sammy." He doesn't seem at all upset over not having friends of his own, and Jess can't figure out if that's cool or sad.

Sam comes back into the living room with two mugs full of rich, dark coffee. He hands one to Dean and sips one himself. Jess doesn't like caffeine after noon.

"This is good," Dean says, like he's surprised. "Maybe you should work at Starbucks, Sammy."

Sam grins and Jess wonders how Sam and Dean can seem so comfortable together, so close, while Dean doesn't even know the basics.

"I do work at Starbucks," Sam says.

Dean sighs and closes his eyes, shaking his head like Sam's just broken his heart.

"Oh, fuck you," says Sam, though he sounds amused, not angry. "Heath insurance is a good thing."

'I've got health insurance."

"No, Paul Henderson has health insurance, you've just got an ID that says you're Paul Henderson."

"Abe Kusznierewicz, actually," Dean says with a grin.

Sam rolls his eyes and Jess is about to ask but she's not sure if they're teasing or serious and she doesn't want them to know she doesn't get the joke.

Sam cracks open one of his textbooks and sits in the arm chair next to the couch. Jess turns on the TV.

"Remote," says Dean, tipping his chin at her.

Jess pulls the remote closer to her body. "My TV, my remote."

Dean laughs and looks at Sam. "Is she serious?"

"I dare you to find out," Sam says, not looking up from his textbook.

"Seriously," Dean says. "Give me the remote."

"Nice try, bitch," she says. She drops the remote down the front of her shirt. "My TV, my remote."

"Don't think I won't go after that," Dean says.

"I'll stab you in the throat," Sam says, still not looking up.

"Only after I castrate him with a garlic press and feed his balls to the Doberman next door," Jess says sweetly.

Sam smirks. Dean looks slightly terrified.

"Your girlfriend's violent," Dean says.

Sam flips a page in his textbook. "Only when provoked."

Dean slings his arm along the back of the couch and leans in towards Jess. "I kinda like it," he says in a voice that Jess has to admit would be hot if he wasn't Sam's brother and maybe a little insane.

"Seriously," says Jess. "Garlic press."

Dean leans back and holds up his hands in surrender. "All right. Fine. What are we watching? Lifetime or cooking shows?"

Sam laughs and Jess lifts up the bottom of her t-shirt to pull out the remote. "Screw that," she says. "The Cheifs are playing."

Dean looks shocked. He looks at Sam. "Is she kidding?"

Sam shakes his head.

"You need to marry this girl, Sam," Dean says.

Sam looks up at Dean, then, and smiles. "That's what I keep telling her."

Jess' toes curl a little at that. Sam hasn't asked her, not yet, but there's a black velvet box in the very back of his sock drawer that holds a small but lovely diamond solitaire ring. They're going to Monterey in three weeks and Jess knows he's going to ask her then. Knowing Sam, he's going to propose at the aquarium. Probably in front of the kelp forest, since he knows how much Jess loves its otherworldly feel.

On Friday, Sam has early classes and Jess has none so she turns off her alarm clock and lets herself sleep until past ten. When she wakes up the apartment is silent and she assumes Sam and Dean have gone somewhere.

She hears their voices when she comes out of the bedroom, though, and follows them to the kitchen. There are two piles of clothes on the kitchen table, one rumpled and one folded. Sam and Dean are sitting across from one another and it takes a minute for Jess to realize that Sam is stitching a hole in the collar of a t-shirt and Dean is darning a sock.

Sam is telling a story. "...so then Justin points his pool cue at the guy and says, 'But he cheated! He wasn't half as good when we played the first two games!'"

Both Sam and Dean laugh at that. Dean says, "That's not cheating, son, that's skill."

"He doesn't want to pay," Sam says, "like, at all. Everybody knows he's got the bills in his wallet, he's just, you know--"

"Offended," says Dean. "Shocked that for once in his life he didn't win."

"Exactly," says Sam. "I mean, these guys are big, too, and Justin, man, he doesn't have any idea."

"They never do," says Dean. "They kick his ass?"

"They were going to. Luckily, I was at the end of the bar and when the bartender went for his sawed-off, I grabbed it."

Dean looks up at Sam, his jaw dropped open. "Do not tell me you let that little rich boy get out of Dodge without paying up."

"I made him pay," said Sam. "He lost those games fair."

Dean grunts his approval.

"It took him a while to realize that I was serious, though."

"Sawed-off's damn serious," says Dean.

"You'd think he'd know that, but..."

"Rich boy," says Dean. Spilling from his lips, it sounds like the filthiest possible curse. After a few moments he says, "You still got the shotgun?"

"Yeah," says Sam. "You want it?"

"Could come in handy. Not that...I mean, if you need it--"

"No," says Sam. "I'm not going to use it. You can have it."

"Cool."

"Are you serious?" asks Jess, her arms crossed over her chest.

Dean jumps a bit and Sam looks over at her with a guilty expression.

"How does she do that?" Dean asks. "I didn't even hear her."

"She's stealthy," says Sam.

"You have a gun in the apartment?" Jess asks. "A shotgun? That you stole from some bar you went to with my brothers? God."

"I didn't steal it," Sam says. "Exactly."

"Sometimes," Dean says, "you just need to borrow things in order to get out safely."

"Was he hustling pool?" asks Jess.

Dean snorts. "More like he _got_ hustled."

"Not helping," Sam whispers.

"Can we talk?" Jess asks. She looks at Dean. "Alone?"

Sam puts down the shirt and needle and gets up from the table. "Yeah," he says, heading into the bedroom. Jess follows him and closes the door behind her.

"What the hell happened with my brothers?" she demands.

Sam sighs. "I promised I wouldn't tell you."

She puts her hands on her hips and raises her eyebrows.

"It was over Thanksgiving," he tells her. "They took me out to this roadhouse a few miles from your parents' place. I think they were trying to intimidate me."

Jess isn't surprised by that. Her brothers terrified every boyfriend she'd had before Sam.

"Justin was playing pool and he got hustled fair and square. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn't listen."

"And Jason?"

Sam shrugs. "Well, you know what he's like."

Jess nods again. Jason had gotten drunk fast and had probably been half passed out.

"It would have been ugly," says Sam. "I mean, the guy he was playing, he wasn't some lightweight, OK? He was big and he was mean and he was a regular, which meant if I'd let the bartender get his hands on the shotgun before I did..." He shakes his head.

"So you brought the gun back _here_?"

"What else was I supposed to do with it? Give it to Justin?"

Jess shakes her head. "Couldn't you have...I don't know. Thrown it away?"

"You can't just throw away a gun. Anybody could have gotten their hands on it."

"So you brought it back to our home?"

"It's not loaded."

"It's a gun!"

Sam sighs. "Look. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to be such a big deal."

"It's a _gun_ ," Jess says again.

"Yeah, well, I'm used to them, so they're not a big deal to me. I mean, Christ, my dad gave me my first handgun when I was nine."

Jess is taken aback. "Really?"

"Yeah. It was for the monster in my closet. I slept with it under my pillow."

"That's..." Jess says. "That's kind of..."

"Fucked up," says Sam. "I know." He sits on the end of the bed and reaches out for her hand. She lets him pull her close, standing between his legs. He kisses her stomach and Jess strokes his hair.

"So, that's the complicated part of your childhood?" she asks, twining her fingers through his hair.

She can feel Sam's breath against her belly as he laughs softly. "That's barely the tip of the iceberg," he says. "My dad wasn't...even when he was there, he wasn't really there. Dean's the one who raised me. He's the one who made sure I was registered for school, made sure I went to the dentist every year, went to my parent-teacher conferences, patched me up when I skinned my knee."

The thought of one little boy trying to raise another makes Jess ache inside. "Baby," she murmurs.

Sam pushes her shirt up, kisses her navel. His fingers make short work of the tie on her yoga pants.

"Sam," she whispers. "We can't."

"Why not?" He slips his fingers into her panties, strokes her gently.

Jess' breath catches and she grips his shoulder to steady herself. She loves the way he touches her. "Your brother," she says.

"We can be quiet," Sam whispers as he tugs her yoga pants and panties down together. He takes her by the hips and turns her, pressing her back onto the bed as he moves to kneel between her thighs.

Jess closes her eyes with the first touch of his tongue on her. She slides one leg over his shoulder and presses one of her hands to her mouth. Her hips rock against him of their own volition.

Sam laps at her clit, slides his fingers through her wetness. He slips two fingers inside and curls them slightly, pressing up as he uses just the tip of his tongue to tease her. He makes her come in less than five minutes; he's always been able to make her come hard and fast, the way no one else ever has. She can feel him humming with satisfaction as she comes down from the first orgasm. He keeps his mouth on her and if they were alone in the apartment, if they had time and she had the freedom to scream she'd let him bring her to climax over and over again. Instead she reaches down and tugs on his shirt. Props herself up so she can look down at him. He's looking back up at her, his eyes dark and sincere as he licks a long line from her hole to her clit.

"Inside me," she whispers. "Now."

He presses into her in one long stroke and she moans against his shoulder and digs her nails into his back. It feels so dirty to fuck with someone in the next room. It feels so dirty to know that Sam's brother has to know what they're doing. She wraps her legs around Sam's waist and uses her heels to pull him in further.

"Harder," she gasps in his ear. Sam groans and snaps his hips forward, hard enough to make the bed creak with every thrust.

He grips her hair in one hand and tugs her head back and kisses her roughly. Their teeth clash together and he keeps kissing her, pulls her hair hard, grunts with every thrust. He's never been so forceful before. Jess feels another orgasm building and she bites his shoulder to stifle her scream. Sam's hips jerk and he says, "Fuck," once in a broken voice before he comes inside her.

Jess holds him close as she catches her breath. He's shaking a little bit so she strokes his back and his hair.

"That was intense," Sam whispers against the skin of her neck.

"Mmm," she says. She can't help how smutty and pleased she sounds. She says, "Maybe we should fight more often."

"Did that count as a fight?" Sam asks.

"A little one."

He laughs softly and rolls off her. He rubs his hands over his face. "I don't know if I can walk."

Jess hits him lightly in the chest with the back of her hand. "And my family's not rich."

Sam looks over at her and raises one eyebrow.

"They're just...comfortable," she says.

"Compared to my family, everyone's rich," says Sam. He pulls his jeans up from around his thighs, zips back up, stares up at the ceiling for a while.

"I need to clean up," Jess says.

Sam nods and yawns. Sex always makes him sleepy.

She tugs up her yoga pants and runs her fingers through her hair before padding down the hallway towards the bathroom. She pushes the door open and stops short. "Jesus Christ," she whispers.

Dean looks up at her in the mirror, his fingers paused from where he was pressing them against the hastily stitched up gash on his chest. He's covered with them, from his shoulders down to the waistband of his low-slung jeans, and probably further. All the cuts are long and deliberate, some of them shallow and scabbed over, some of them deep enough that they had to be sutured shut. She wonders who stitched Dean up if he refuses to go to the doctor and then she realizes that he did it himself--the only one he couldn't do himself was the one on his right bicep, the one he'd had Sam do.

"Don't tell--," Dean says at the same time Jess yells, "Sam!" She runs down the hall and Sam's already running in from the bedroom, pushing past her to get to Dean in the bathroom.

"Jesus Christ!" says Sam and he slams the bathroom door behind him. Jess can hear Dean and Sam arguing but she can't make out most of the worlds. "... _tell_ me!" she hears Sam say. And then, later, "Of _course_ it's a big deal!" She realizes that she's eavesdropping so she wanders into the living room. She sits on the couch and then gets up, crosses into the kitchen where she starts to do the dishes but can't concentrate.

Her first thought is that maybe Dean did it to himself. It doesn't seem right, though, and for as little as she knows him she knows he didn't. Somebody did that to him. Somebody took their time. She braces her hands on the counter and vomits into the sink.

Jess tips her head beneath the tap to rinse her mouth out. She runs the garbage disposal and places her forehead on the cool edge of the stainless steel basin. She thinks about the scars on Sam's body, the easy explanations that rolled off his tongue--car accident, fell out of a tree, flipped off his skateboard. She wonders if she knew they were lies even at the time.

She doesn't know how long it's been before she feels a big hand gentle on the back of her neck. She's always loved Sam's hands.

"Baby," Sam whispers.

Jess straightens up and looks at him. She doesn't realize that she's been crying until she sniffles. "Who did that to him?" she asks.

Sam shakes his head. "It's--"

"If you tell me it's complicated I swear to God I'm walking out of here and never coming back." She means it, too. She's shaking.

Dean's leaning against the doorframe. His face is still pale, though the dark circles have lightened up with a few days of rest and good food. Jess thinks about him tied down--because he'd had to have been tied down, right?--some...some psycho cutting him up like that. His eyes look like Sam's get sometimes, sad and tired and too old for his age.

Dean tries to grin at her but it's weak and unconvincing. "Don't worry about it," he says, trying for casual. "I dated this girl who turned out to be a real crazy bitch and, you know, hell hath no fury and all that."

"You are so full of shit," Jess snaps.

Dean smiles again, a real smile, though weary. "I really do like your girlfriend, Sammy," he says as he pushes off the wall and heads towards the couch. He sits down with a sigh and rubs his hand over his face. "OK. So. The truth."

"That would be nice," Jess says. "From _one_ of you, at least."

"Don't blame Sam," Dean says, looking up at her. "The stuff he's kept from you, he was only trying to protect you."

"I'm not a doll!" Jess is sick of it. Her whole family treats her like she's a helpless child--she doesn't need it from Sam's family, too.

"I was tracking this guy," says Dean.

"Dean," Sam whispers, shaking his head.

"It's all right, Sammy," Dean says. "Dad and I were tracking this guy, a real evil bastard. He's left a trail of bodies across the Midwest and I can't even...what he did to me, that wasn't even close to what he did to those girls."

Jess sits down on the arm of the couch and rests her hands in her lap, waiting for him to continue the story.

"We lost the bastard's trail in Kansas," Dean says. He looks at Sam. "Near Lawrence."

Sam wraps his arms tight around his waist and hunches in his shoulders. "Was it...?"

Dean shakes his head. "No. But the trail ran cold, all the leads ran out."

"You and your dad," Jess says, "you're what? Cops?"

Sam laughs softly and Dean says, "More like bounty hunters. Only, you know, not as well paid. Dad got a call from a buddy of his in Maine who wanted a hand and I kept looking for our good friend the sociopath."

"You went in without Dad?" Sam sounds stunned.

"Hey," says Dean, "you're the family genius, not me. You know what an idiot I can be. I got wind the bastard was in San Gabriel, so I headed out here to California and, well..." He shrugs. "I got out alive, which is always a plus."

"You're such a fucking idiot," Sam says. His voice is shaking.

"Yeah," says Dean, "I kind of figured that out. Thanks."

"You could have been killed." Sam looks close to tears.

"I _know_. God. I was the one getting all sliced up and fed on, thanks."

Jess doesn't ask what he means by "fed on." She's pretty sure she doesn't want to know.

She sleeps restlessly that night, dreaming about psychopaths in the shadows with long, glinting knives. She wakes up when Sam leaves for work, but only long enough for him to kiss her forehead and stroke her hair and tell her he'll be back at one.

She wakes up again around nine, takes a shower, and in the living room Dean is folding up the sheets and blankets he'd slept on. Jess helps him without asking if he wants her to.

"Why haven't you called the cops?" she asks, folding their beige microfiber blanket and dropping it on the edge of the couch.

"About what? Oh, the, uh, the guy?"

"He kidnapped and tortured you," she says. "You should call the cops before he does it to someone else."

Dean sighs and runs one hand over his hair. He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again. Finally, what he says is, "OK, so, you've seen what he did to me, right? If I sent police after this thing, this guy, I'd be sending them to their death."

"But they're trained and--"

"Not for this. Not for anything close to this. I know you don't like it when people don't tell you shit, but trust me, all right? There are, like, five people in the world I'd trust to take this guy out, and that's counting Sam and Dad."

Jess laughs softly and shakes her head. "Sam? Sam couldn't..." She stops talking when she sees the look in Dean's eyes. He looks weary again, and sad, like he knows something he doesn't want to have to tell her.

Jess looks away from him and takes a deep breath, lets it out slow. What she says next is, "You feel up for a walk? We could go get coffee."

"Yeah," says Dean. "Coffee would be good."

They walk in silence. Jess sets the pace slower than normal since she can tell how tired Dean still is. When they're about halfway there, she points to an alley across the street. "We got mugged there a few months ago," she says. "Almost mugged. Sam grabbed the knife out of the guy's hand like it was nothing, had his arm pinned behind his back and his cell phone out to call 911 before I even knew what was happening."

Dean nods but doesn't say anything.

"He said it was instinct. Said he didn't know what happened, really, or how he did it. He's full of shit, right?"

Dean shrugs and they walk the rest of the way in silence.

Sam's behind the bar when they get to the store and the line is long, so he can't do much more than smile when he sees them. They're brewing Verona, and Jess and Dean both get ventis and settle into chairs on the outside patio.

"I was dating Sam's roommate when we met," Jess says.

"So you said."

"Anyway, I barely knew Sam when I was dating Mark. He was always gone, always working or studying. He never hung out in the room with us, rarely came to parties."

Dean sighs and nods. "Yeah. That sounds like Sam."

"Halfway through spring quarter, he started to cry and he couldn't stop." She can feel Dean's eyes on her so she doesn't look at him. She takes a sip of her coffee. "It went on for days and it really freaked Mark out. My mom's a therapist, so Mark thought maybe I'd know what the hell to do." She shrugs and looks at him finally. "I didn't know what to do, not really. We got him up and dressed, took him to student health, got him meds and therapy sessions. He could barely get out of bed."

"I didn't know." Dean's voice is dark with guilt.

"Mark didn't know what to do with him, and my roommate was never there, so every day I'd go get Sam, make him take a walk with me and sit in the sun, then we'd go back to my room and I'd study or watch TV or whatever, and he'd lay his head in my lap and cry."

"I..." Dean opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again. He takes a deep breath.

"I'm not telling you this to make you feel like shit. I just..." Jess shrugs. She doesn't know why she's telling him, exactly. "Your life, the way you grew up, it was hard on him."

"I know," Dean says. He looks down at his coffee, chews on his lower lip. "After our mom died, our dad...it wasn't...he did the best he could, raising Sammy."

"According to Sam, you're the one who raised him."

Dean looks up at her. "He said that?"

She nods. "Yeah."

"Huh." He takes a sip of his coffee, looks out into the distance.

"I didn't mean to totally kill the conversation," Jess says after a couple minutes of silence. "Tell me something about Sam growing up." She smiles. "Something embarrassing."

Dean laughs and rubs his hand over his stubble. "Embarrassing, huh? He ever mention the time he tried out for the gymnastics squad?"

"It was the cheerleading team, and if you tell that story I'll make you sleep in your car," Sam says from behind him.

Jess looks up and grins as Sam pulls out a chair and sits next to them, venti glass of ice water in his hand. He's got beads of sweat on his temples and Jess leans over to smooth them with her thumb. "Crazy in there today," she says. "You on your ten?"

Sam nods, leans over to kiss her, then kicks Dean's foot. "Don't let her encourage you," he says. "She's a bad influence."

Dean nods solemnly. "Terrible. In fact, she was just telling me how you two met."

Jess kicks Dean under the table, something Sam doesn't miss. He frowns and looks down at his ice water.

"It wasn't--" Jess starts. She doesn't know what to say. She didn't expect Dean to just come out with it like that, and she feels like an asshole since she knows Sam hadn't wanted Dean to know.

"No," Sam says softly. He lays his hand over hers. "It's all right."

"You never called," says Dean. He's looking out in one direction, Sam's looking away in another.

"Wasn't much to say."

Jess can see Dean's leg move, sees him place his foot gently on top of Sam's. "You could have called," he says, somehow making it sound like an apology.

Sam nods and looks at Dean, manages a tight smile.

"I totally want to hear about gymnastics tryouts," Jess says after another minute of tense silence.

"Cheerleading," says Dean.

"Over my dead body," says Sam, but he's smiling for real, his eyes crinkled at the corners, and Jess doesn't know quite how, but the matter's been resolved.

After Sam's break is over, Jess and Dean walk back to the apartment. Dean's obviously exhausted and Jess has brothers, she knows how guys work. She tells Dean she wants to take a nap, tells him she won't mind if he turns on the TV since she'll sleep right through it. She goes to her room and reads for a while, and when she comes out for a glass of water, Dean's fast asleep with the remote in his hand.

Sam gets home at one and immediately falls into bed. Jess rubs his feet as he falls asleep, then pulls out her sketchbook to work on the drawing assignment she has due in four days.

She lays down next to Sam after a while, snuggles up to his sleepy warmth. She knows she should wake him soon--he hates to nap for more than an hour--but they're going out that night so she lets him sleep for a while.

He and Dean both wake up around four, Dean blinking and denying that he was asleep at all, Sam scowling just a little bit at Jess for letting him sleep for so long.

"You wanna do something?" Jess asks.

"Star Wars marathon on," says Dean.

"Sweet," says Sam, going to the fridge for beer.

Jess rolls her eyes and goes back to working on her sketch. Boys.

Once it gets dark, Jess pins her hair up and takes a long bath, shaving her legs all the way up and scrubbing off the calluses on her heels. She wraps herself in a fluffy towel and pads across the hall to the bedroom where she applies lotion and sits at her makeup table to brush out her hair and twist it into two long braids. She takes her time getting dressed, humming softly as she does so, and applies her makeup patiently, exaggerating the bow of her lips and the pink of her cheeks.

She's ready around nine o'clock, which is perfect timing, and she heads out into the hall.

"Wow," says Dean, stopping short as Jess comes around the corner. "I...um...yeah. Sam. Your girlfriend's dressed up like a nursery rhyme hooker."

"I'm Little Miss Muffet," Jess says, putting her hands on her hips. She's wearing a short blue dress and a white ruffled apron with a black spider appliqué. She's got on white thigh-highs with black satin bows on the tops, black high-heeled Mary Janes, and a white ruffled crinoline that peeks out from beneath her dress.

"You can sit on my tuffet any time," Dean says, the words out of his mouth like he can't stop them. "Seriously, though, I...damn."

Sam comes out of the kitchen and smiles when he sees her. "Do you mind if we sit this one out?" he asks.

"I'm wearing thigh-highs and a six-inch skirt and you want to sit it out?" she demands.

"You guys do this on a regular basis?" Dean asks. "Not that I'm judging because obviously, Sammy, you've got a kinky girlfriend who's into playing dress up so, well, score."

"It's Halloween," Sam tells him.

Dean sighs. "Fucking Halloween."

"Not you, too," Jess says. She can't help but be mildly amused at the both of them, grown men sulking over a silly holiday. "It's _fun_."

"Previously, I would have disagreed with you," Dean says. Jess can feel his eyes on her bare thighs between where the stockings stop and her skirt begins. "Looking at that, though..." He looks over his shoulder at Sam. "Your girlfriend makes Halloween look fun."

"Stop looking at my girlfriend," Sam says, punching Dean's arm gently. "And you don't have to keep calling her my girlfriend, you can call her Jess."

"Hey, I'm just stunned that you've actually got a girlfriend, let alone one that looks like that." Dean looks back over at her and Jess can feel the heat behind his stare.

Sam smacks Dean in the back of the head. "Keep your eyes in your head, dude."

"I'm only human," says Dean.

"You sure you don't want to wear the gladiator costume?" Jess asks, though she already knows what Sam will say.

"I'm sure," he says. "Really, you go out with your friends and Dean and I will just hang here."

Jess shakes her head, reaches out and grabs Sam's wrist in one hand, Dean's in the other. "We're going out," she says firmly. "And we're going to drink too much and steal candy from small children."

"Well," says Dean, "when you put it like that..."

She drags them to the front door, then lets go of their wrists and leads the way down the hall.

"Dude. Stop staring at her ass," says Sam.

"Have you _seen_ her ass?"

"Yes, actually."

"Then you know why I'm staring at it."

Jess grins and pretends she can't hear them, though they're only a few steps behind her.

"She doesn't happen to have any naughty schoolgirl outfits, does she?" Dean asks.

Jess looks over at her shoulder at him and grins.

"Dude," says Dean, looking at Sam. "You're, like, the luckiest man alive."

"Yeah," says Sam, a little bit smugly, "I know."

They spend hours at the bar and get back to the apartment around one.

"Halloween sucks," Dean says as he pushes back one of the kitchen chairs and straddles it. "You got any tequila?"

"I think we've had enough," says Sam.

"Tequila!" says Jess, opening the liquor cabinet. She sets the bottle down with a thunk. "Grab the limes, Sammy."

Sam snorts and rolls his eyes. "It's _Sam_ ," he says. "Don't let him rub off on you."

"Oh, I will _so_ rub off on her," Dean says with a wicked grin.

Jess bats at Dean's shoulder and rolls her eyes. "In your dreams, buddy."

Sam smirks and sits down at the table across from Dean. He's already gotten the limes out of the fridge and a small paring knife to cut them with. Jess grabs the salt and the shot glasses and sits next to Sam.

"I just don't get it," Dean says as Jess pours the shots and Sam cuts the limes. "You dress up as a monster and people give you candy. It's fucked up. I wanted to waste half those dudes in the bar tonight."

"Seriously," says Sam.

"You're no fun," says Jess. She pours the last shot a little too full and licks the spill off her fingers.

"I'm lots of fun," says Dean with another leer.

"In your dreams!" Jess shrieks, laughing like it's the funniest thing she's ever heard.

They each do a shot and Jess is the only one who grimaces. "You boys," she says, "can really hold your liquor."

"It's genetic," says Sam.

"Sammy," Dean's voice is dark.

"What? It is. Also, environmental. Hell, Dad forgot half his hiding places, and don't tell me I was the only one sneaking his stashed whiskey."

Dean grins and shakes his head. "Who's the one who taught you how to find his stashed whiskey?"

"That would be you." Sam looks at Jess and sighs. He's drunk and happy. "Dean taught me everything," he tells her. "He taught me about music and cars--"

"Not that any of the lessons stuck."

"He taught me about girls."

"And you turned out to be an unexpected prodigy after the late bloom."

"He taught me about fighting and weapons."

"OK," says Jess, "that's a little freaky."

Sam shakes his head and waves his hand as if he could erase Jess's worry. "No, no, not at all. I mean, OK, yeah, so I don't exactly like to fight, but I totally can if I have to."

"I could still kick your ass, Sammy."

"It's _Sam_. My God, do I look like a fat pre-teen to you?"

"You were fat?" Jess asks with a hiccup.

"Dude," says Dean.

"I wasn't fat," says Sam, crossing his arms over his chest. "I was chubby."

"He was fat," says Dean. "Like the marshmallow man."

"Oh, fuck you," says Sam. He tugs off his t-shirt and turns to look down at his side. "At least I don't have love handles."

Dean looks seriously offended. "Dude, I so do not--"

"You so do!"

"I do _not_!"

"Relax," says Sam. "They're cute."

"Do I have love handles?" Dean asks, pulling up his shirt on the side to show Jess.

"Nope," she answers honestly. "But you don't have a body like Sam's either."

"Ha," says Sam.

Dean frowns. "You're just biased since he's giving you the dick."

Jess laughs and gasps and Sam looks like he can't decide if he wants to laugh or to punch Dean in the face.

"Dick giving or not," says Jess, "Sam's body is pretty much perfect." She grins at him. "Then again, all that dick _might_ make me just a little biased."

Sam blushes and ducks his head down.

"I'm going to bed," Jess says, a little wobbly when she stands up. She runs her fingers along Sam's bare shoulders, leans to kiss his ear. "Don't be too long," she whispers before stumbling to their room and collapsing onto the bed without even taking her shoes off. She falls asleep within a minute.

Hours later and she's half asleep, so it doesn't register at first, what the sounds she's hearing are. There's a soft grunt, a sigh, Sam and Dean's voices low and hushed. There's a moan she recognizes as Sam's and then she's wide awake. She knows the sounds Sam makes during sex, and he's making them at that very moment. In the living room. With Dean.

She sits up and, God, oh God. She'd assumed the way Sam hadn't been able to keep his hands off her ever since Dean arrived had been some sort of alpha male thing, some stupid boy way of making sure his brother knew she wasn't up for grabs. But what if it had been something else? What if Sam had been so horny _because_ of his brother?

Jess presses her hands over her ears and lays back down. She's having a bad dream. It's just a bad dream. She sits back up and occupies herself with getting out of her costume and into a roomy t-shirt. She wants to wash her face but she doesn't want to have to leave the bedroom and see anything she's not supposed to see. The noises stop eventually and she snuggles down into the bed, facing the wall. When Sam finally comes in nearly an hour later, she pretends that he doesn't smell like sex. It's just a bad dream, that's all.

She doesn't sleep. Sam rolls over in the middle of the night and slings his arm over her shoulders. She pushes his arm off and gets out of bed, sits by the window staring out into the darkness for hours. When dawn breaks she gets dressed and goes for a run. She doesn't have any answers by the time she gets home. Dean's asleep on the couch. He looks innocent when he's asleep. She wants to smash her fist into his face. She wants to cry. She doesn't do either, just takes a quick shower and leaves before she has to face either one of them.

She goes to class and then to work, and when she gets back to the apartment she can't remember anything she learned or any customers she talked to. Her stomach hurts as she climbs the steps and she holds her breath as she opens the front door. The apartment is quiet and there's a note on the coffee table, "Went to do laundry, back before dinner."

Jess takes a long shower and cries a little bit. She wants to call her mom but she doesn't know what she'd say. She wants to go to sleep but her mind won't turn off. She ends up lying in bed staring at the ceiling, then she sits up and grabs a sketchbook and draws, the lines coming out dark and fierce.

She can hear Sam and Dean laughing as they enter the apartment, can hear their easy, brotherly banter. Brotherly. Jesus.

"Hey," says Sam when he comes into the bedroom. "How was work?"

"OK," she says softly. She watches Sam from behind her sketchbook as he drops the basket of clean laundry on the floor in front of the closet and lifts out a shirt to hang it up. He never folds the laundry at the Laundromat.

Jess watches him for a long time, and he doesn't look any different. She thinks he should, though she knows it's ridiculous. He's just Sam, the way he's always been, the way she's never known he was.

She gets up, finally, to help him with the laundry. She snatches up one of her white cotton nightgowns, the ones she favors during the summer when it's hot.

"Dean seems better," Jess says softly, folding her nightgown over and over again before giving up and just crumpling it in her hands.

"Yeah." Sam seems distracted. He rubs his fingers over his mouth and closes his eyes, as if remembering something.

"I think it's time for him to go."

Sam looks over at her, startled.

"He's better. He doesn't need to be here anymore."

He says, "Did he come on to you?"

"No. God. Not seriously, anyway. Not except for when you were right there to hear him. I just...I don't...he's not..." What does she say? How do you have a conversation like this? "I think he's a bad influence," she whispers.

Sam stands up and comes over to her. He rubs her arms with his hands. "What's going on?" he asks.

Jess looks up at him, and Sam's mouth does that thing it does when he's sad. He looks away from her and takes a step back. "Jess," he whispers.

"It's complicated," she finishes. "Is that what you were going to say? You had sex with your brother, Sam. I heard you."

He takes a deep breath and she can see the tears in his eyes. He turns away from her and sits suddenly, his head down, his arms wrapped around himself.

Jess kneels next to him, places her hand on his shoulder. "You wanna tell me about it?" she asks.

Sam's soft laugh is choked with a sob.

"Or I can tell you, because I've been thinking about it. It's all I've been able to think about. Your mother's dead, your father wasn't there, there was no one for you but Dean. Town after town, city after city, no stability, no one to take care of you, no one to love you but Dean."

"Don't," Sam whispers. "Don't even think that you can understand."

"Maybe I can't, but that's not my fault. You don't tell me anything, Sam, and then your brother shows up and I find out you've been getting the shit kicked out of you your entire life and your father's a drunk and your mother's dead and your brother's a fucking bounty hunter and you grew up in bars and motel rooms and...fuck." She runs her fingers through her hair. "Fuck. I'm trying to understand this. I _want_ to understand this but if you don't let me in--"

"I can't."

"What am I supposed to do here, Sam? You slept with someone else."

"I love you," Sam whispers, taking Jess' hands in his.

"You slept with someone else. What am I supposed to do with that? I can't even deal with the brother thing right now. What am I supposed to do with the fact that you had sex with someone else in our apartment while I was sleeping in our bed?"

"Hey," Dean says as he shoves open the door to their bedroom.

"Not really the time, Dean," Sam says.

"Yeah. Sorry. So, um, you still have that shotgun, right?"

Sam lets Jess' hands drop. "Why?" he asks, his voice low and wary.

"No reason," Dean says too quickly. "Except, you know..." He shrugs and gives Sam a wincing smile.

"Damnit," says Sam as he stands quickly. "It followed you?"

"Hey! I was as stealthy as I could be but, you know, days of torture, no food, serious dehydration, maybe I got sloppy."

"I'm not blaming you."

"Well, it sounds like you are."

"Well, I'm not!"

Jess stands and puts her hand on Sam's arm. "We should call the police," she says.

Dean winces at her suggestion and Sam doesn't even acknowledge it, just pulls away from her and strides towards their bedroom closet. He starts to pull things off the top shelf until he reveals a long shape wrapped in a blanket. He unwraps it and pops it open, gazing into the barrel for a moment before locking it back into place. "I've only got two shells," he says.

"You said it was unloaded!" Jess cries.

"I've got shells," says Dean.

"What the hell is this thing, anyway?" Sam asks.

"I don't know. Some sort of chupacabra thing."

Sam pauses and looks at Dean with incredulity. "A chupacabra?" he asks, and Jess thinks for a moment that Sam thinks Dean's crazy, just like she does. Then Sam says, "Christ, Dean, chupacabras feed on _animals_ , not humans, and they definitely don't tie humans up and feed on them for days before finally killing them."

"I know," says Dean, raking his fingers through his hair. "I know, OK? It's not a chupacabra chupacabra, it's just...it's a bloodsucky kind of humanoid kind of mothman-ish thing, but no wings."

Sam rolls his eyes.

"It looked like a dog at first, if that helps," Dean says. He hurries into the hall and looks both ways before darting off towards the living room.

"Great," Sam grumbles. "A shape shifter."

"Sam?" Jess asks. She doesn't know what else to say. She wonders how she never knew before that her boyfriend was not only delusional, but completely insane.

"Come on." Sam takes her hand and pulls her out of the bedroom. In the living room, Dean's unpacking a duffle bag full of guns and knifes. He tosses a box of shotgun shells at Sam, and Sam palms them quickly and slides the box into his pocket.

"Why the _hell_ didn't you ever salt your doors?" Dean asks as he stuffs a gleaming silver revolver into the back of his jeans.

"I _did_."

"Yeah? Because I just checked and there's no salt."

"It's inside the doorjamb. And there's salt in every windowsill."

"You said you replaced those because they had water damage!" Jess can feel her voice climbing higher and higher with every word, but she can't stop it. "Sam Winchester, what the hell is wrong with you?"

"Oooh, she just used your full name, dude," Dean says as he hikes up one pant leg and stows a knife in his boot. "You're so in trouble right now."

"What if it's corporeal?" Sam asks.

"What?"

"If it's not a ghost, if it's not a demon, salt won't do any good. Do you think it's a demon?"

"I don't know," Dean admits. "It's not a ghost, that much I know, I--"

The window shatters and suddenly there's a...a _thing_ coming right at them, all claws and teeth and stringy fur. It's making this inhuman, unholy noise and Jess can't move, can't breathe because it looks almost like a person, but it's not, not like any person she could ever imagine.

She thinks maybe she's screaming and Sam steps in front of her, the shotgun poised on his shoulder, but the thing's so fast, inhumanly fast, it knocks Sam down before he can even pull the trigger and it's snarling and she can see its face and oh, God, its face, it's not human. It's a thing, some sort of devil creature, something out of nightmares, eyes glowing a sickly orange and it uses its claws to slash Sam's face and Jess is screaming, she's screaming and she needs to save him, needs to protect him, and then, suddenly the snarling turns sharper and more full of rage because Dean's got a knife and he's grabbed the thing by the matted hair on its head and he drives the knife deep into the thing's back.

The thing turns, hits Dean so hard he flies across the room and Sam's up, Sam's up and he grabs the knife and twists it before pulling it out, ducks the thing's arm as it whips around, throws himself at it and there's blood, so much blood, blood on Sam and on Dean and blood splashing across the front of Jess' t-shirt and blood on the floor and Dean picks himself up, staggers forward shaking his head as if to clear it, he's only been out maybe five or ten seconds and he's in the fight too and Sam's winning, Sam's got the thing by the hair and he's hacking at it with the knife, grunting and hacking until he's separated the thing's head from his body.

The room is suddenly quiet, the only sounds are their labored breaths.

Sam laughs softly and stands up, dropping the thing's head to the floor. It makes a sickening sound when it hits and it rolls a bit before it stops.

"You are so not getting your cleaning deposit back," Dean says, looking at the pool of blood spreading quickly across the rug that Jess had gotten not two months earlier from Pottery Barn.

"Are you all right?" Sam asks, reaching out to touch Jess' arm.

"Yeah," she whispers. Her voice sounds strange, like it's not her own.

"Let me see that cut." Dean takes Sam's face in his hands, turns it towards the light.

"I'm fine," says Sam.

"I should stitch it."

"I said--"

"Not open for discussion, Sammy. It needs to be stitched."

Sam sighs and nods, heads for the bathroom. "Fine," he says.

Sam's eyes flutter closed when Dean begins to suture the wound on his cheek, his deep, slow breaths belying the pain he must feel. Jess says, "You could have told me."

"Would you have believed it?" Sam asks.

Dean says, "Shut your pie hole, I'm working, here."

Sam closes his mouth and doesn't move again until after Dean's finished. He opens his eyes when Dean wipes the sutured gash with peroxide but he doesn't flinch away. When he looks at Jess his eyes are sad and wearier than she's ever seen them before.

"Would you have believed me?" Sam asks in a low, calm voice.

Jess shakes her head. She knows she wouldn't have. "What was that thing?"

"Just a nightmare, sweetheart," Dean says cheerfully. "Just some junkie wino. Nothing to worry about. Why don't you and Sam go get some ice cream and I'll get this all cleaned up."

Jess doesn't know she's going to slap him until she feels the sting in her palm. "What the fuck was that thing?" she demands.

"Yeah. I don't know. Some chupacabra-mothman-ish humanoid, um...thing." He looks at Sam. "Think we should save the head? Take it to Pastor Jim or something?"

"Maybe," Sam says. "We should call, first, see if he can identify it from our description, just in case it's got the power to regenerate."

"Good idea," says Dean.

Sam reaches out to touch Jess' hand. "There are things in this world that most people don't know about," he tells her. "Evil things. You know all those times I told you that my childhood was complicated?"

"Hard to forget." Jess' voice is shakier than she'd like.

"My mother was killed by a demon when I was six months old. I grew up hunting them."

"Demons," Jess whispers.

"Among other things." Sam sighs. "Sorry you had to find out this way. Decapitation's messy."

"But effective," says Dean. He rubs his cheek where Jess slapped him. "Your girlfriend has one hell of an arm, Sammy."

"Don't call me that."

"Sammy," says Dean with a grin.

They roll the body up in Jess' brand new Pottery Barn rug and Jess makes sure the coast is clear before they carry it out to Dean's car. It's huge and black, and when they're loading the thing's body into the trunk, she sees that it's filled with weapons of all kinds. They tell her she's safe, now. They tell her to stay in the apartment while they take care of it.

Jess refuses. She sits in the big back seat of Dean's Impala with her bare feet tucked beneath her. Sam sits next to her and pulls her into his huge embrace and rocks her back and forth. "I'm sorry," he whispers into her hair over and over again. She doesn't know what he means, if he's sorry about not telling her the truth, if he's sorry about having sex with his brother, if he's sorry about cutting off some demon-thing's head right in front of her.

Metallica's _The Thing That Should Not Be_ is playing softly on the stereo, and neither Dean nor Sam seem to think there's anything weird about that, like maybe it's fucking _symbolic_ or something.

They drive east for almost an hour, until they're in the middle of nowhere. Jess is nearly asleep, Sam's long arms still wrapped tightly around her. Dean gets out of the car and she can see the glow of his cellphone.

"What are we doing here?" Jess asks.

"We need to burn it," Sam tells her. "The body. So it can't ever come back."

Jess says, "Oh," like it should have been obvious. Of course. An inhuman dog-monster-thing nearly kills you, and you need to burn it. Why didn't she think of that?

Sam cocks the sawed-off shotgun and hands it to her. She stands by the car, watching them drag the body off into the middle of a field, cover it in rock salt and gasoline, then light it on fire. Sam comes back to wait with her, urging her back against him until she's standing on his feet when she shivers. He takes off his button-down and drapes it around her shoulders, then wraps his arms around her waist. She's still got the shotgun in her hands and Sam's cheek is warm against the top of her head.

"I didn't know how to tell you," Sam whispers. The fire pops and Jess tries to pretend that the sound isn't bones cracking. He sighs. "I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want this life."

She doesn't blame him. She leans back against him and tips her head against his shoulder.

"I hid my application to Stanford beneath my mattress the way most teenage boys hide porn," he whispers. "I had to do everything in secret, the application, the essays, recommendations, the scholarship. My father...to him, me leaving was like treason. My entire life I'd been dragged from motel to motel, from crappy apartment to crappy house, all across the country, never for more than a few months at a time. Even before I got older and he started to hate me, my father was never there. He was drunk or he was hunting or he was just gone, gone for weeks at a time. The only constant in my life, the only safe thing in my life was Dean."

"Sam, you don't have to," Jess says because she can't hear it. She can't take any more, no more secrets, no more pain. She turns towards him and Sam eases the gun from her hands, sets it down carefully. She wraps her arms around him and presses her face to his chest.

"I love you," Sam tells her. There's a hitch in his voice. "I love you so much."

"Love you, too." It's still true, even if her whole world has been turned around.

"I don't want that life," he whispers. "I want you. I want you, Jess. I want our life. If you can forgive me, God, please forgive me--"

Jess reaches up and touches his mouth with her fingertips. She leans up and kisses him, feels the same desire she's always felt every time Sam has kissed her, coiled at the base of her spine. Christ. She can come from the way Sam kisses her, the way he holds her head in his hands and just claims her. She winds her leg around his calf, presses herself against him, moans into his mouth--

"Oh, for the love of Christ," says Dean with an exasperated snort. "You guys can't keep it in your pants for two hours?"

Jess feels the soft gust of breath against her cheek as Sam laughs softly. "Fuck you," he says, but the words don't hold any heat.

"Leave me out of it," Dean says.

Jess thinks about Sam pressed warm against her front, imagines Dean pressed hot against her back. She shudders.

"Did you rip your stitches?" Sam asks. When Jess turns she sees Dean pressing his hand to his abdomen.

"I'm fine."

"Let me see."

"I said I was fine."

"You want to bleed all over the inside of your car, fine." Sam shrugs and picks up the shotgun, moves like he's going to get into the passenger seat.

"Fine. Fuck. I don't know. Maybe I ripped something dragging that heavy bastard out there." Dean pulls up his t-shirt and Jess can see fresh blood.

Sam squats down and presses his fingers to the skin beneath the bleeding gash. "I don't think you ripped them out," he says. "It's hard to tell in the dark. Can you wait until we get back to the apartment for me to take care of it?"

Dean nods.

"OK." Sam opens the trunk and pulls out a first aid kit, presses a large piece of gauze over the wound and tapes it in place.

Dean crashes in the back seat on the ride home. Sam drives and Jess sits in the passenger seat, her knees pulled up to her chest. She thinks the moonlit scenery would be beautiful any other time.

She turns off the radio and they drive in silence for a while. "Was that a werewolf?" she asks.

Sam shakes his head. "No. Some sort of shapeshifter."

"But there are werewolves?"

Sam nods.

"Vampires?"

Sam nods again.

"Bigfoot?"

He shakes his head.

"I think I need to get very drunk when we get home."

"Marry her," Dean mumbles, nearly asleep.

Back at the apartment, Sam cleans up Dean's stitches while Jess goes into the kitchen. She opens the freezer and drinks vodka straight from the bottle. It's so cold, it burns her chest. She keeps drinking until she's had the equivalent of three or four shots and her knees feel week and rubbery. She sits at the kitchen table and laughs, the sudden sound startling her. That makes her laugh again. She can hear the hysteria in her voice and it just makes her laugh harder.

"Hey," Sam says. She doesn't know when he got into the kitchen but he's there next to her, suddenly, stroking her hair. "Jess, baby..."

She laughs again, claps her hand over her mouth and tries to stifle the giggles that come through.

"Come on," Sam says, helping her up, leading her down the hall.

"Sammy?" Dean asks. "I think maybe your girlfriend's mind has snapped."

Jess shakes her head, leans in and presses her mouth to Dean's. He lets her kiss him for just a moment before pulling slowly away. "Yeah," he says softly. "I think it's a definite snap. What does Pastor Jim always do for shock, again? Tea with bourbon? You got any bourbon?"

"I'm not in shock," says Jess. She kisses Dean again and he kisses her back for just a moment before he pulls away.

"You're not thinking straight," he tells her.

"We could share," she whispers against his mouth.

Dean jerks away from her and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"What?" she asks. "You don't kiss anybody you're not related to?"

"You're drunk," says Dean. "And you've had one hell of a rude awakening."

"Or don't you kiss girls?" she asks. "Is that it?"

"Jess," Sam says. He's been so quiet that she'd forgotten he was standing behind her. "Come on. You should lay down."

She lets Sam lead her to bed, tries to tell him that she's not tired but as soon as he tucks her in she's asleep. Thankfully, she's doesn't dream.

Jess wakes up around five in the afternoon, feeling like hell. She stumbles into the bathroom and pees for what feels like forever. Her mouth tastes absolutely disgusting and she brushes her teeth and her gums and her tongue to get the sourness out.

"Morning," Sam says from the living room.

Jess groans and leans against the wall. There's window putty around the edges of the new pane he and Dean had obviously just installed to replace the one broken the night before. Jess puts her hand to her forehead. "Did we get attacked by a monster last night?" she asks.

"Yeah," Sam says softly.

Jess groans and nods and shuffles back to bed. She wakes up again an hour later, feeling less like death and more like a human being. She wants to drink a gallon of ice water and to take an hour-long shower.

"Are you leaving?" she asks as she sees Sam and Dean zipping up duffle bags in the living room.

"Yeah," says Dean, hefting one of the duffels up and slinging it over his shoulder. "Figure I've overstayed my welcome."

Jess bites her lower lip. "About last night, when I--"

He grins at her and shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. Hell, I'm a damn handsome devil. Ow," he says when Sam punches him in the arm. "Anyway, Jess, it was nice to meet you. You take care of my boy, here."

"I will," Jess says with a quick nod.

"I'm gonna help him take his stuff to the car," Sam tells her, walking over so he can rub her bare arms. He smiles sadly at her. "Are we OK?"

"Yeah," she says. She doesn't think it'll be easy, but she knows they'll be OK. "I'm going to take a shower, then maybe we can get takeout."

"Sounds great," Sam says. "I'll order it soon as I'm back. You want Thai?"

"Yeah."

Sam kisses her forehead, then her mouth. Jess leans against the wall for a moment, watches Sam and Dean head out of the apartment with duffle bags full of clothes and supplies and weapons. She heads to the bathroom and has just turned on the shower when she hears Sam call her name.

"Sam?" she asks, leaving the bathroom and heading into the bedroom. Sam's standing by the closet with his back to her. "You lose something?" she asks.

"Jessica," the man says when he turns. "You're a sweet girl, but you just won't do." He's not Sam. She's suddenly propelled backwards and pinned to the wall, unable to move, unable to scream. She realizes after a moment that he's not a man at all, since his eyes flash dark yellow when he smiles.


End file.
